


Operation Star-Spangled Double(s)

by oatrevolution



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Comedy of Errors, F/M, M/M, everyone is an idiot (except steve and natasha), never let these guys plan anything ever again, some action but mostly bickering, terrible ideas: the story, the dream team america deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 22:51:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2446073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oatrevolution/pseuds/oatrevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Y’know, there are technically three of us,” Clint pointed out.  “Shouldn’t it be Operation Star-Spangled Double</i>s<i>?”</i></p><p>
  <i>“Now you’re just nitpicking,” Tony said.  He tacked a hasty (s) to the end of DOUBLE.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Also, I’m pretty sure that’s permanent marker,” Clint added.</i>
</p><p><i>“Damn it!” Tony shouted.</i><br/> </p><p>Or, in the Parlance of the Internet, a Most Useful and Modern Device, a List:</p><p>Step 1: Impersonate Captain America.<br/>Step 2: ???<br/>Step 3: Profit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation Star-Spangled Double(s)

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really suck at html, so let's all just... pretend really hard, okay?

The infamous Star-Spangled Double(s) op began innocently enough. Well, innocent in that everyone basically meant well.

So HYDRA had done a belly-flop into the Potomac, but it turned out that even splinter cells had splinter cells, and most of HYDRA’s didn’t seem to give a shit about Pierce and the rest of them and they sure as hell didn’t want to get within a hundred yards of the Winter Soldier (who might have been recovering but was not, in fact, calm and accepting about the whole thing, and only the metaphorical chain of Steve Rogers around his ankle kept him from killing the lot of them in increasingly creative ways), but they all seemed to hate Captain America as a matter of principle, and so he was attacked six times on different missions: three times with semi-automatics and machine guns, twice with a rocket launcher strapped to a motorcycle somehow, and once with a tank.

After the tank, Natasha and/or Steve finally got fed up, and the two of them bailed. Steve didn’t even turn up for his briefing.

 _finding a safe house,_ Natasha texted Clint, which was the first he’d heard about it. _we’ll get this fixed. radio silence from here on out, barton._

Clint sighed and went to make some spaghetti. As usual, Natasha got to do all the cool stuff while he sat on the sidelines and waved a hanky. At this rate, they’d take away his Avengers ID and throw his bags on the street.

Okay, so mostly he just really, really wanted an excuse to get Stark funding for his latest arrow design.

Stark, who burst through the kitchen door, looking not at all out of breath because his body had gotten used to constant movement a long time ago. “They’re just gonna sit there until those guys show up to shoot them, I know it!” he said. “Next time they’ll send a fighter jet! Or—or an _atomic bomb!_ We can’t just sit back and watch!”

“HYDRA probably doesn’t have an atomic bomb,” Clint said dubiously.

“Yeah, but I’ll bet they stole some quinjets from SHIELD and glued on rocket launchers and like sixteen machine guns and shit. They’ll never stand a chance.”

“You’re right,” Clint said. “Natasha would hear them coming from ten miles away. Maybe that’s—”

“Barton,” Tony said, pinching his nose. “I am so—they’re _two people_ up against _an entire army!_ Of crazy fanatics! What kind of people are we if we stand by and do nothing?”

It was probably supposed to be a rousing speech. Clint thought about those arrow designs.

“You know what?” he said. “You are totally, totally right. I don’t think I could forgive myself if I didn’t help.”

Tony clapped his hands. “Excellent! Because I’ve already scheduled our planning meeting and it started like ten minutes ago.”

Clint left his spaghetti with a regretful look. Taser arrows, he told himself. You shoot someone and then they get knocked out. Probably useful against cybernetics, too. A question occurred to him, belatedly. “Wait, are there more people coming? To the meeting?”

“Yeah, Wilson texted me his concerns in the first place,” Tony said. “He had, like, this huge list. I mean, some of it didn’t even make sense. I _guess_ we could airlift supplies to them, but shouldn’t we take out the bad guys first? And the one with gasoline just wasn’t his style. He must be really stressed.”

Clint liked Sam Wilson. Most people liked Sam Wilson. If he was in on this, they could probably corral Tony into something resembling reasonable action, and if he refused to go along, Clint knew Rhodey’s number. He had the power.

So Clint liked that part, but his day took an immediate dive when he saw that Sam had brought—well, “a friend” was probably putting it a little strong. A lot strong. Steve gave every indication of liking the new and improved Bucky Barnes, but everyone else politely disagreed about 103% of the time. He hadn’t killed anyone yet, but he was angry and hateful and probably constantly on the edge of wanting to burn down the Tower and have done with it.

“Yo,” Sam said, waving; Bucky glowered at them from where he’d smushed himself into the farthest corner of the couch. “You two are late. We’ve been watching the clock.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s my M.O.,” Tony said, looking a little thrown by Bucky’s presence, but he rallied admirably. “Clocks are for losers. You know, they just really cramp my—”

“Then why do you have them?” Bucky interrupted, belligerent.

“Pepper made him,” Clint said quickly. Jesus, new arrows were almost not worth this. “Look, I thought we were going to help Steve and ‘Tasha. Isn’t that what this meeting’s for?”

“Yeah, but now I need to redo the lunch order,” Tony said, aggrieved. “JARVIS, make it so.”

“Yes, sir,” said JARVIS. Clint was pretty sure it was a miracle Bucky didn’t smother Tony with one of his own damn pillows, which he’d stupidly put on every couch, well within reach of that creepy metal arm. Actually, scratch that, all of Bucky was creepy. And sketchy. He needed a wash, shave, and haircut in the worst way.

“What did you order?” Sam asked.

“Pizza, duh,” Tony said, rummaging around in a closet in the corner. Something thumped and he yelped. “Ouch! No, but seriously, what’s a planning meeting without pizza? That’s like… an elephant without peanuts.”

“I’m pretty sure that elephants like bananas,” Clint said. And he would know. He grew up in the circus.

“Whatever. Same thing. I got, let’s see, ground beef and mushroom, uh, the chef’s special with like sixteen things on it, and—”

“Pepperoni?” Bucky put in hopefully. He _had_ grabbed one of the pillows, but only to shove between his knees and his stomach, like he was hugging it.

“What do you think I am, a traitor to my country?” Tony demanded. “Of course I got pepperoni. Aha!” he yelled, coming up triumphantly with an old-fashioned whiteboard on little wheels. What was Clint’s life, that he now thought of whiteboards as old-fashioned? “Now we can brainstorm,” he said. “We’ll make thought-bubbles and shit. And then we can reward ourselves for a job well done when the pizza gets here.”

Clint looked over at Sam in exasperation, but Sam wasn’t paying attention. He just looked excited. Clint’s stomach sank a little.

“Bucky and I came up with some ideas this morning,” Sam said cheerfully. “I already texted some of them to you, but I—”

“Hey, cheating!” Tony exclaimed. “I only have like… two percent of a plan. How come you get to have—how long was that list again?”

“Well, I only came up with a few things,” Sam admitted. “Most of the rest of it was him.”

“Steve’s _in trouble,_ ” Bucky growled, squeezing the pillow so tightly Clint was surprised it didn’t explode feathers in his face. “I could just go and find them myself, I don’t need your help—”

“Buck, you _know_ Steve wouldn’t want you to do that.” Sam smiled at him, a little sad, and somehow not too intimidated by the frankly murderous expression in front of him. “He told you so himself, remember, in—”

“Well, then we use the gasoline, like I suggested,” Bucky said mutinously, “and put it on—”

“Okay, okay, first of all _no,_ ” Tony interrupted. “I read that text once, I’m going to have nightmares about that, it doesn’t need to be actually acted out in real life, thanks awfully. Second of all, just… _no._ ”

“Can I just shoot them?” Clint asked. Because that would be a good way to get people to remember him, and then he could ask Tony about his designs. Perfect!

“I can help!” Bucky volunteered immediately.

“ _No!_ ” Tony and Sam yelled.

“I think maybe this op should involve as few casualties as possible,” Sam said after a short pause where Clint made a face and Bucky sulked. “Steve wouldn’t want a bunch of people to end up dead, not even if they’re HYDRA agents.”

“Plus we’d probably get in a lot of trouble,” Tony said. “You know, from Natasha.” They all shuddered—except Bucky, who seemed unimpressed.

“And Steve,” Sam added quickly, to head off that problem before it could really get started, and Bucky sighed and sat back.

“Well then what are we going to do?” Clint demanded. What was the point of being Hawkeye without the bow? “Write angry letters to HYDRA-controlled newspapers?”

“That would be kind of funny,” Tony said. “I’ll see if JARVIS can find some way of doing that, they’d be so confused—can you imagine the looks on their faces?”

“They’d never take us seriously again,” Sam pointed out, reasonably. “Look, I think—”

“No, that’s actually a pretty good idea,” Bucky said, perking up. “Letter bombs can be done, I know how, it’s—”

“Wow, you are a really violent person,” Tony said wonderingly.

“He has a point,” Clint said. “We could just _blow up_ HYDRA’s leadership. Boom.”

“Target eliminated,” Bucky said happily.

“ _No,_ ” Sam said. “No letters, and _especially_ no letters _with bombs in them._ I know _you’re_ some kind of super-spy and _you’re_ a recovering assassin, but come on. Death should be the last resort. Does _anyone_ have any ideas that don’t involve bows or guns or bombs or any combination of the three? And _no gasoline,_ ” he added.

The three of them sat for a minute, thinking. Well, Clint took a chair and thought there, and Bucky had the couch, but Tony paced, rapping his knuckles with a marker. It was really annoying.

“I was gonna say we should threaten them and get them to come after us instead, but Pepper told me never to do that again,” Tony said.

“It would probably suck to have the Tower blown up,” Clint remarked.

“Yeah, probably,” Tony agreed.

“You’re all useless,” Sam said. “But that’s okay, because I have _the best plan ever._ ” He leaned forward in his seat, very excited. “So basically, we have to at least give Steve and Natasha enough time to get settled in their safe house, right? And if possible, we should draw HYDRA out and take care of them ourselves. So I was thinking, what if we took one of Steve’s uniforms, pretended to be him, and waited for them to attack us? Then boom, they’re captured, problem solved!”

“So… fake Captain America?” Clint said.

“No, that’s _brilliant!_ ” Tony said, stars in his eyes. Apparently Pepper’s injunction didn’t cover pretending to be _other_ superheroes to lure out the bad guys. “But we need more than one. Right? Then we have a couple of decoys so they’ll split their forces because they don’t know which one is the real Steve! But really _neither_ of them are! Can I be Mission Control?”

“You or JARVIS, I guess,” Sam said.

“ _Awesome._ ” Tony uncapped the marker with great enthusiasm and began scribbling on the whiteboard. “Okay, so I’m Mission Control, and we need two Captain Americas, right, so—”

“Three,” Bucky interrupted. He had half-hidden his face behind the pillow, so all you could really see were his big dark eyes and dirty hair, and it was actually kind of adorable. Wait, no, Clint, snap out of it, he’s _terrifying._ “The more targets, the harder it is to track them all, and you can miss one if you get confused. Three is better than two.”

Yeah, all right. He was terrifying, but Clint also felt a little sorry for him. Personal experience was a bitch.

“But I still wanna be Mission Control,” Tony whined.

“Are you saying a black man can’t be Captain America?” Sam snapped, eyes narrowing dangerously.

“No, he’s just stupid,” Clint said. “And he wants to be as cool as Maria Hill.”

“She is _so awesome,_ ” Tony said reverently.

“I can be Steve too,” Bucky said into the pillow, forehead red. “That’s three.”

“Okay, okay, gimme a sec,” Tony said, scribbling furiously.

“Why aren’t you doing this digitally with JARVIS?” Clint asked. It had just occurred to him that he’d never seen Tony use an actual pen before.

“’Cause it’s a _secret_ operation,” Tony said. “Duh. Can’t have anyone hacking in and figuring out what we’re going to do before we do it.”

Eventually, Tony let them see that he had half-filled the board with nearly illegible scribbles:

> _OPERATION STAR-SPANGLED DOUBLE_
> 
> _mission control: me! [weird squiggle] 4 the win!!_
> 
> _captain americas:_  
>              _falcon [scribbled drawing of a bird]_  
>  _hawkeye [scribbled drawing of a slightly different bird]_  
>  _barnes? codename??? [lopsided star]_

 

“What is that?” Bucky asked, squinting.

“That’s a star,” Tony said, greatly offended.

“I meant the smear beside your part.”

“Oh. A smiley face, _obviously._ ”

“Y’know, there are technically three of us,” Clint pointed out. “Shouldn’t it be Operation Star-Spangled Double _s_?”

“Now you’re just nitpicking,” Tony said. He tacked a hasty (s) to the end of DOUBLE.

“Also, I’m pretty sure that’s permanent marker,” Clint added.

“Damn it!” Tony shouted.

 

* * *

 

The pizza was a hit. Bucky claimed the entire box of pepperoni and ate it all. He looked about ready to start chewing on the cardboard until Sam handed him another two slices of the veggie that Tony had forgotten he’d ordered.

Bucky eyed his new plate suspiciously. “What the hell is on this?”

“Plants,” Sam said. “I know, it’s green, green is terrible. It won’t kill you.”

“It _might,_ ” Bucky said.

“No,” Sam said firmly. “It won’t. Steve would let you pick something else, but Steve is too nice to you, and I think you’ll notice that he’s not here right now. Eat your damn vegetables.”

Grudgingly, with the air of someone doing something only under extreme duress, Bucky ate the pizza. Clint could tell he was trying to think of ways to get anything green off without Sam noticing.

“So do I have to get JARVIS to sew us up some Cap uniforms or what?” Tony asked with his mouth full.

“I’m pretty sure Steve has some extras somewhere,” Clint said. They all had spares, just in case one got shredded beyond easy repair.

“Technically, I think he must have four or five,” Sam said. “But he keeps a few at his apartment. You know, like the one from New York, and I think the stealth one and the original that—uh, the one they had to patch up a little. For old time’s sake.”

They all flicked a glance over at Bucky, who suddenly forgot about his hatred of all things green in his effort to cram both slices of pizza into his mouth so he wouldn’t have to say anything. It was kind of disgusting.

“Okay, so we have uniforms, that’s great,” Clint said, taking pity on him. “What about shields, though? We’re not going to fool anyone if we don’t at least have something that looks like the shield.”

“I don’t have any vibranium left, obviously,” Tony said. “But I can get some steel knock-ups or something. Not as good as the real thing, so try not to get shot or whatever, but most of us can’t throw a shield through a wall anyway. Barnes, keep it cool, all right?”

Bucky glared at him. It was a noticeably less effective with chipmunk cheeks.

“And you two,” Tony went on, pointing at Sam and Clint, “definitely need to keep on those little flappy helmet things and put the shield up towards your face if anyone gets curious. _He’s_ got the super-soldier build, but you’re a pair of scrawny little twits.”

“I think we got the idea, Stark,” Sam said, annoyed.

“Did you hear that, JARVIS?” Tony asked.

“The three steel shields will be ready in six hours, sir,” JARVIS said dryly. Confirmation that JARVIS probably spied on them all the time, even when they told him not to. Clint was onto him. It? Him?

“ _Right._ ” Tony clapped his hands together. “So where are these uniforms and when do we pick them up? I say we run the op tomorrow. Oh yeah, and where are we going to lure HYDRA? Nobody actually uses that park, right?”

“I think a lot of people use Central Park, Tony,” Sam said wearily.

“It should be somewhere near some tall buildings,” Clint said, thinking about ways to stash his bow nearby, wherever he ended up. Then, if the plan went to shit, he’d have a weapon close to hand.

“Dude, we’re in _New York,_ ” Tony laughed. “Tall buildings everywhere!”

“Tall buildings might actually be bad,” Sam said doubtfully. “They could stick someone up there and shoot us before we even know where they are.”

Bucky managed to choke down his slices. “Not necessarily,” he said, and must have remembered some dim scrap of manners, because he belatedly covered his mouth with his metal hand. “HYDRA doesn’t have the resources it used to. We just need streets surrounded by buildings owned by corporations, ones that can afford security cameras. And keep moving. They won’t have time to position someone.”

Clint stared at him, suspicious. “ _You_ could do it,” he said. Natasha could, and Bucky had about four and a half decades of experience on her.

“I’m the best,” Bucky said. “That’s why they…” He shut his mouth with an audible snap and grabbed for the pillow again. Clint wondered how high the dry-cleaning bill would be; getting smeared pizza sauce off cream-colored fabric couldn’t be easy.

Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Okay, so we’re looking for streets in the higher-end area of town, and I guess we’ll try to aim for mid-morning or something, when not a lot of people are going to be walking around.” He tapped quietly for two whole minutes—a new record—and then looked up, remembering. “Are Steve’s things in his apartment? _Are we gonna break into Captain America’s apartment?_ ”

“What’s your definition of ‘breaking in’?” Clint asked, intrigued.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s definition of breaking in, it turned out, did not involve a key.

“Wait, why do _you_ have a key to Steve’s apartment?” he asked, bewildered, and probably a little disappointed that he didn’t get to break out his amazing lock-pick skills, which he’d told them about at length on the drive over. He hadn’t let anyone get a word in edgewise.

Bucky looked at him like he was insane. “Because I _live_ here?” he said.

“What!” Tony exclaimed. “No way! Since when?”

“Since _forever,_ ” Bucky snapped, irritated. “We just ended up being forced to take a break for seventy years, what do you _want_ from me?” He shoved the key into the lock with more force than was really strictly necessary. Clint was a little afraid that he’d break it off in the lock and start crying in the hallway or something.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” his mouth said, mostly without his permission. “Everyone knows the stories of Steve And Bucky.”

Bucky looked half grateful and half murderous. But he didn’t actually kill Clint, and he didn’t punch Tony in the face, or break the key, or cry. So that was a plus.

Steve’s apartment, it turned out, was pretty normal. No star-spangled anything, not even a pillow. He had a modern refrigerator and even a Keurig, which Clint wouldn’t’ve thought he’d be able to use. Nice pictures over the desk. He had one of his girl, and one on the desk of himself and Bucky during the war. They grinned at the camera, sitting on the tailgate of a truck, feet swinging.

“Aw,” Tony said, disappointed. “No stars-and-stripes coasters? I thought at least he’d have stars-and-stripes coasters.”

“Stark, he doesn’t wear a flag on his head _all_ the time,” Sam said. Clint was glad he’d kept his mouth shut about the pillows.

“Don’t touch anything,” Bucky warned, shutting the door behind them, latching it. “It’s not a damn sight-seeing tour.” He stomped off down the hall, apparently trusting them to follow, which they did, like ducklings after their mother. Clint wondered what Steve’s downstairs neighbors thought about the noise. Did they know that Captain America and his homicidal best friend lived here? They needed pensions from the government just for putting up with this bullshit.

Even Steve’s bedroom was boring and neat as a pin. Sam gave the impression of knowing what to do from here, which was lucky, because Bucky seemed reluctant to cross the threshold, as it were, leaving the rest of them to cross the last five feet to the closet alone. “Aha!” Sam said triumphantly, pointing to three Captain America suits in clear plastic garment bags. “ _Sweet._ ”

Clint unapologetically elbowed Tony aside (“ _ouch!_ ”) to take a look. “Won’t they be a little big? Steve’s, you know.” He held out his hands at the rough breadth of Steve’s shoulders.

“Eh, it’ll be all right,” Sam said dismissively. He was obviously reluctant to have anything successfully stand in the way of Being Captain America For The Day.

“Okay, so I’m Mission Control, I don’t need one,” Tony said, elbowing Clint back just because he was a cruel, petty bastard. “Barnes has the most Steve-like, you know,” and he copied Clint’s gesture, “so maybe he should be in one of the really bright ones—”

“ _No,_ ” Bucky snapped, high and strained.

“No, Bucky gets the stealth one,” Sam said firmly. “Besides, Barton and I will need the bright colors to distract from our… less-well-developed physiques.”

“Shut up, man,” Clint said. “Speak for yourself.”

“Well, fine, then just pick one, what do I care?” Tony said. He went for his phone again. “Is anyone else hungry?”

“Dude, we just ate,” Sam protested.

“Then can we get some coffee or something? Planning is hard work.” Tony turned to Bucky imploringly. Clint didn’t blame him for looking alarmed and taking a step back. “Can I use the coffee machine? Please?”

Bucky didn’t want to let Tony use the coffee machine. Clint suspected it was a knee-jerk reaction, because Bucky was actually a bastard, and if anybody wanted something he was morally opposed to giving it to them. Well, anybody except Steve. Bucky would let Steve have whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. “I can do it,” he snarled, bristling like a cat, probably because he thought Tony was saying he shouldn’t be let anywhere near it, or that he wouldn’t know what to do anyway, and it was snap at him or kick him in the balls.

Sam and Clint traded glances. They could _probably_ both jump out Steve’s bedroom window at the same time, but if not, Clint planned on kicking him in the kneecaps and leaving him for dead.

“Whatever,” Tony said, totally unfazed, his thumbs flying over the virtual keyboard. “Get me a, hmm, you know, one of the macchiato mixes, maybe the purple one? I know you guys have it, I saw it in the rack. That’d be great.”

Bucky got stuck halfway between clutching his hair and throwing his hands up in frustration. He made an unintelligible squeaking sound, like someone stepping on a shrew, and then left, either fleeing to the kitchen or looking for a pillow to scream into. Poor thing.

“And put it in the biggest mug you have!” Tony hollered after him.

“Tony, you should be nicer to him,” Sam said, aggrieved.

Tony, who blinked at them owlishly, confused. “What? Who? _Barton?_ ”

“What?” Clint said. “No, you idiot, the homicidal maniac you just sent off in a huff. Speaking of,” he added, rounding on Sam, “ _why_ did you bring him?”

“Steve told me to keep an eye on him,” Sam said defensively. “Besides, he needs socialization, he got a lot better once he’d stay in the same room with me instead of—”

“Doesn’t make him _not crazy,_ ” Clint hissed.

“I can _hear you!_ ” Bucky yelled from somewhere down the hallway. He swore in Russian and kicked what sounded like a chair. Or possibly the table. Something glass smashed on the tiles.

Shit. Super-hearing. Clint _deserved_ to be assassinated, forgetting about that.

 

* * *

 

For reasons best known to himself, Bucky decided not to kill them. He even, generously, let them sit at the table, and it turned out that he did know how to use the coffee machine, with his metal hand shoved into the pocket on his hoodie. Spitefully—because a mysteriously forgiving Bucky was still a pretty hateful Bucky—he gave Tony the smallest mug.

As a passive-aggressive ploy, it would’ve worked better on someone not named Tony Stark. He just slurped at it obnoxiously and said, “Okay, JARVIS has three streets that meet the criteria. And I figure Mission Control can stay here, in case HYDRA figures out what Steve’s address is or something. JARVIS and I can totally handle it.” When Bucky seemed about to protest, he said, “What, you want them planting a bomb in here for when Steve gets back?”

Bucky groaned. “Fine. But _don’t_ snoop.” His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I’ll know if you do.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Tony said, innocent as a baby. An angel. A baby angel. Whatever.

“We need codenames,” Clint said, trying to keep this conversation on track.

“Why?” Tony asked. “Don’t you guys already have some? Or you and Wilson, anyway?”

“Do you _want_ HYDRA knowing who’s who if they hack our signal?” Clint demanded. “No, we need to keep them confused. Besides, you’re not Iron Man anymore, and he’s not the Winter Soldier or whatever. And it’s lame to have two birds on the same team.”

“Yeah, everyone knows that ‘the Falcon’ is _much_ cooler,” Sam said smugly.

“Shut up, it is not,” Clint snapped.

“Maybe, like, the military alphabet thing?” Tony suggested. “You know, alpha, beta, gamma—”

“That’s the Greek alphabet, Stark,” Sam said. “I think you mean alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, etcetera.”

“Dude, who says ‘etcetera’?” Clint sniggered.

“But that won’t work,” Bucky said, frowning. “Aren’t you supposed to—I don’t know, use the first letter of our last names?”

“Yeah, that would make me—what the hell is S?”

“Sierra,” Sam said.

“What, like in California?” Tony asked. He knocked back the last of his coffee and held it out imperiously. “Another!”

Bucky looked ready to bite. Clint wouldn’t put it past him—he could probably take Tony’s fingers off with one chomp.

“What, you want me to really smash it? Like Thor? That guy’s nuts.” Tony smirked; Clint, personally, would’ve counted that expression as grounds for murder. “Next time, give me a bigger mug, genius.”

Either Sam was right or the idea of Steve’s disapproval was a better ball-and-chain than Clint’d thought, because Bucky somehow resisted the urge to throttle Tony to death on the spot, and Clint could tell he was thinking about it. In graphic detail. “Get your own fucking coffee.”

“Perfect!” Tony said and sprang up out of his seat.

 _Tony: 1. Bucky: 0._ Clint hastily hid behind his mug.

Still glaring daggers at Tony’s back, Bucky continued, “I’m Barnes, he’s Barton. Won’t work.”

“Aw, shit,” Sam said, disappointed. “I wanted to be Whiskey.”

“I _need_ some whiskey, dealing with you idiots,” Bucky said heatedly.

Clint perked up. “Do you have any?”

For his efforts, Bucky turned that glare on him instead. “Can’t get drunk,” he said, like Clint was cripplingly stupid, and probably couldn’t be trusted to cross the street on his own. He had officially reached new levels of loathing.

“Oh yeah,” Clint said, after a very short, very ugly pause.

“Well, maybe _you_ could be C,” Tony suggested, returning with coffee in a brand new mug, which he’d liberated from the cupboard while Bucky wasn’t paying attention. “Or _you_ could be, you know, whatever your actual name is. James?”

“Charlie sounds too much like a real name!” Clint argued.

“ _Don’t_ call me James,” Bucky said through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, we’d have to call you Juliet instead,” Clint said quickly, not doing a very good job of not laughing. Tony didn’t even bother to try.

Bucky actually did clutch at his hair. Clint was a little afraid that he’d rip it out. “Christ, _I’ll_ be Charlie, if it means that much to you. Just fucking—pick one of the others!”

“I wanna be Alpha!” Tony said, putting his hand up in the air like a kid in school.

“It was _my_ idea,” Sam protested. “I should be Alpha!”

“What are we, twelve?” Clint said. “If we’re going by seniority, then I should be Alpha. And we should. Go by seniority, I mean.”

“ _If_ we go by seniority,” Bucky snapped, “then _I’m_ Alpha. I was born in _1917._ But I don’t want to be Alpha, so instead I use my seniority to nominate Sam as Alpha.”

“Yes!” Sam crowed, punching the air.

“But—!” Tony said.

Bucky smirked at him. “Should’ve stuck with your smaller mug, _genius._ ”

“You two are ridiculously catty,” Clint said, frankly impressed. _Tony: 1. Bucky: 1._

“If we’re going to go all out of order _anyway,_ I want to be Bravo,” Tony said mulishly. “Like half of this plan is mine, at least.”

“Whatever, so long as I’m not Charlie,” Clint said. He’d always thought Charlie was a stupid name. It made him think of woodchucks.

“So are we go for tomorrow, or what?” Tony asked.

 

* * *

 

Operation Star-Spangled Double(s) met back up at Steve-and-Bucky’s apartment the next morning at exactly just past eight in the morning. Well, to be fair, Sam had been allowed to crash on the couch, but Bucky had finally gotten fed up and kicked Clint and Tony out and told them in no uncertain terms to _stay the fuck away_ until seven thirty, or he’d—well, he wouldn’t kill them, but he sure could royally fuck their shit up. And then he slammed the door in their faces so hard that the frame rattled.

“I thought people in the ‘40s only said _aw shucks_ and _gee whiz,_ ” Tony whined, but only when they were safely in the car and away. “Steve needs to wash that guy’s mouth out with soap.”

When they trooped back in, Clint grudgingly carrying the fake shields and Tony armed with a venti Starbucks latte—Bucky’s threats about so much as looking at the coffee machine had been rather graphic—Sam stood in the middle of the living room, fists on his hips, looking like nothing so much as an old-fashioned schoolmarm. “ _Put those back,_ ” he said.

Bucky wore the blue stealth suit and a wet cat look, like he thought Sam was after him for something unjustified. “ _They’re_ going to be armed,” he protested.

“Yeah, but Steve doesn’t carry _six knives,_ ” Sam said. “Put them back. Now.” He squinted at Bucky’s face; Bucky looked shifty as hell. “… It’s not just six, is it? Where’s the second derringer?”

“ _Nowhere,_ ” Bucky said. He was a really terrible liar, which Clint totally hadn’t expected.

“Hey, Barnes, lookin’ good,” Tony called from the kitchen, where he was unpacking his duffle, spreading out umpteen million technical things on the island.

Sam and Bucky both snarled at him.

“It’s _supposed_ to be a non-lethal mission,” Clint said, doing his best to sound pious and not at all like he planned on hiding some grenades under his own Steve uniform. Or like he’d parked a rental car on his street with his bow and arrows in a bag in the back seat, just in case.

“Don’t you even start. I’m patting you down too,” Sam said. Clint scowled. “James Buchanan Barnes, I _will_ tell Steve about you-know-what if you don’t get rid of all of those weapons right this second.”

Bucky was horrified. “You _wouldn’t._ ” Seeing only determination and a squared jaw, he fled back to what Clint presumed was his bedroom.

“What kind of dirt do you _have_ on him?” Tony asked, awed.

“Hey, man, I gotta save it for the important moments,” Sam said. “Barton, c’mon. Turn out your pockets.”

Sam could frisk with the best of them, damn him. He found everything and put it all aside, beside a truly enormous—well, it was more of an _arsenal_ than a _pile,_ really. Bucky had either been trying to squirrel weapons past Sam all morning or he knew more ways to hide guns on himself than Natasha. Clint wondered if he also knew the patented Red Room Thighs Of Death maneuver.

An hour and a half later, they were ready. Tony spent most of the time sending incriminating signals and laughing hysterically. Sam claimed the original (recently-mended) uniform, leaving Clint with the one from New York. He felt like he was swimming in fabric.

“What the hell, man,” he said, pulling at the collar. “Surely even Steve isn’t this buff.”

“Oh my god, this is hilarious,” Tony said. He cackled. “I’m totally putting this up on Instagram.” At Sam’s look, he hastily added, “After the mission is over, of course.”

Growling, Bucky stomped up and started tightening straps, expertly cinching the uniform around Clint’s arms and stomach. The blue one fit _him_ basically perfectly, naturally. He was maybe a little stockier than Steve, but not so’s you could really tell. Sam had forced him to shave and he’d knotted his hair back. He looked like a totally different person.

“Don’t forget your helmet,” he said, grabbing it from the couch and shoving it into Clint’s hands. Technically, he’d stolen the blue gloves from Clint’s ensemble, on the grounds that the blue was nearly the same and it was probably less obvious than a shiny metal hand.

“Man, HYDRA are going to laugh themselves sick,” Clint said, pinwheeling his arms to get a feel for the shoulder movement. He’d definitely need the bow.

“ _I_ think we look good,” Sam said, standing still while Bucky tugged and fussed at his own Steve uniform.

When Tony could breathe enough to talk again, he handed out earpieces. “I can’t be Mission Control if you can’t hear me,” he said. “These are prototypes, I put them together last night—they’re so cool, seriously. See, we don’t need microphones in your gloves or whatever, the earpiece is just clever enough to pick it all up on its own. Less crap to carry around and install. I’m thinking, next month, I’ll export production to—“

“I’m Alpha, ‘Mission Control’ over here is Bravo, Barnes is Charlie, and Barton’s Delta,” Sam interrupted. “Nobody forget. We don’t want to blow our cover.”

Clint was pretty sure they’d blow their cover the second anyone got a close look at them. New arrows, he reminded himself, jamming on the helmet and fighting with the straps. Hell, after this, Tony owed him at least _three_ new versions. One each for putting up with his obnoxious laugh, Bucky’s obnoxious personality, and Sam’s obnoxious tendency to go stupid when presented with the opportunity to enact his childhood dream of being Captain America. Maybe he’d double the price and demand six designs. He’d ask Natasha for ideas.

“You are just no fun,” Tony complained. “Whatever. I’ve routed signals through wifi hotspots on your streets, so everybody stick to—oh yeah, almost forgot.” He dug through his bag some more and triumphantly emerged with three much-folded pieces of paper. Clint’s was about the size of his thumbnail and kept shut with a bright orange rubber band. “That’s a map of your location. Don’t go outside the lines, or else you’ll all end up in one place and then they really will shoot you. Good luck!”

Easy to say when you were the one staying behind in a comfortable apartment with a coffee machine. Clint, fuming, looped the receiver onto his ear.

“I’m touched by your inspiring words,” Sam said sarcastically. “Come on, let’s go.”

Bucky didn’t budge. “Are you _sure_ we can’t just—” he began.

“ _Yes,_ ” Sam and Tony hollered, momentarily united in exasperation, and Sam grabbed Bucky’s arm and dragged him out the door personally. Clint rolled his eyes and followed. This ‘no killing’ rule was stupid.

Sam stopped them in the stairwell and took their little papers, managing, with difficulty, to pry the rubber bands off. He squinted at Tony’s chicken-scratch. “ _Just in case,_ ” he said, with a hard look at the both of them, “we’re gonna mix this up a little. You two are switching streets. Cl—I mean, Delta, you’re going to the financial district. Charlie, you take the intersection by the Roxxon building.”

Clint tried to look innocent. Shit, he thought. So much for the car idea. And that had been a pretty brilliant one, too.

Bucky’s expression was just the usual: irritated beyond belief.

“Testing, testing, one two three,” Tony said in his ear. “What up, bros, this is Mission Control, calling from—”

“ _Shut up, Stark,_ ” they said, nearly in unison. A historic moment.

“Well, _somebody_ woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Tony said.

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” Clint told him.

“Lies,” Tony protested.

“Whatever,” Bucky said. “Give me Delta’s map, I have no idea where this Roxxon building is.”

 

* * *

 

Charlie Square, as Tony still insisted on calling it, seemed to be a fairly boring section of town, all things considered. Some genius had stuck three banks on the same street, and everyone walking by wore suits and shiny shoes. The banks had identical big glass entrances and old-fashioned stone facades. A ritzy apartment building on the corner had very obvious security cameras and leafy trees on the roof. Dull, very dull.

Much duller than Delta Square, outside the big, modern skyscrapers, that was for sure. It still made him sad to look at the line of cars parked outside the apartments and know that not one of them had his bow on the back seat. Sam was a total jerk. Did he _really_ expect Clint to defend himself with a fake shield?

“You know, I’m starting to think that this plan actually sort of sucks,” he said out loud. He loitered in an alley and attempted to make a bright, spangled uniform blend in with some bricks. How could Steve stand to go out in public in these things? Clint pulled the helmet tighter around his ears.

“ _Apostate,_ ” Tony said. “I can’t believe you. This plan is awesome.”

“Yeah, man, it’s a genius plan,” Sam chimed in. He was presumably already at the fountain, tempted to sign autographs for some gaping children. What a dick. Clint had taken the snake-iest path here he could think of, just to stay out of the public eye for a little longer.

He was a little surprised that Bucky hadn’t blown a gasket yet. If Sam had let him keep this street, he could’ve got here almost entirely by roof.

Not that Bucky had _expressed_ his fury. But you could totally feel it, even halfway across the city. If he weren’t a freakish experiment, he’d need blood pressure meds for sure. Actually, he probably needed to be on a _lot_ of prescription drugs. Antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, those sorts of things. Someone needed to get Steve to force him to see a psychiatrist. Talk out his many, many, many, _many_ issues.

“And it’s probably a bit late to back out now,” Sam added. God, the beginning of this op seemed so long ago. He wanted to go back and tell past!Clint to run far, far away.

“When I die, I’m coming back to haunt the fuck out of you,” Clint said heatedly. “I just want you all to know that. I’ll sell my soul to the devil just so I can make your lives fucking miserable.”

“Language, Ba—Delta,” Tony said, disapproving, which was totally unfair because he said the same sort of thing all the time. “Who do you think you are? _Charlie?_ ”

It took Clint a second to realize he meant Bucky. “I don’t think he has a fucking monopoly on swearing, _Sierra,_ ” he said pointedly.

“My memory of last night begs to differ,” Tony retorted.

“Wow, I didn’t know you liked him _that_ much,” Clint said. “But I don’t judge, man. You can’t help your love of sculpted abs.”

Tony groaned and Sam laughed out loud.

“Jesus fucking _Christ,_ shut the _fuck up,_ ” Bucky snarled, his patience snapping.

“See?” Tony said. “’Sides, everyone knows he has the hots for a certain tall, strapping, blue-eyed American hero, you know, the one who actually fits in those—”

It turned out that Bucky had a truly impressive vocabulary in both English and Russian, and he’d branched out to German and what was either Japanese or Chinese when somebody started shooting.

Clint flinched and dove behind a trash bin—the passing bankers, who had been politely Not Staring, looked at him like he was insane—and then he realized that the shots had come in over the earpiece, and nobody had actually found _him._ Yet.

“Five hostiles,” Sam said over the crackle of gunfire and what sounded like screams, voice tight. “Driving a big black Hummer— _get out of the way!_ ” he roared and disconnected.

“Only five?” Bucky asked, disappointed.

Summoned out of the ether by Bucky’s words, an equally big and black SUV screeched around the corner and nearly ran over a lady in a grey pencil skirt, who just barely managed to trip backwards onto the sidewalk instead. It lurched to a stop about half a centimeter from a very expensive Mercedes and someone rolled down the window and stuck a gun out the gap.

“You and I are having words about this, _Juliet,_ ” Clint said through gritted teeth.

He bailed on the trash bin and ran to fling himself under an equally expensive BMW, which looked likely to withstand a lot more bullets than some plastic. HYDRA still sucked at actually, you know, _aiming,_ so the bullets conveniently dogged his heels until he dove behind the trunk. _Thunkthunkthunk_ said the metal. A tire popped with a squeal.

The bystanders also squealed and started fleeing in every direction, waving their arms wildly. Clint poked his head up cautiously and, through the car windows, saw one especially smarmy-looking lawyer type pause to take some cell phone pictures of the scene, only to be run over by a horde of ladies in three-inch heels.

“That’s one, two—probably five or six guys in the car, altogether,” Clint reported. Of more immediate concern: “ _Why do we only have fake shields?_ ”

Nobody had a chance to answer this extremely valid question, because at that moment Bucky let out a bloodcurdling scream, like a hunting cat about to tear someone’s face right the fuck off, and Clint clutched at the side of his head. He swore his ear was bleeding.

“What the _hell_ was that?” he yelled. _Thunkthunkthunk_ —they were still aiming at the car. One of the windows shattered and, staying low, he scrambled behind another car, this one an Audi. These people had some serious conformity issues.

“I _told_ you to keep it cool!” Tony shouted, presumably at Bucky. “Uh, he’s—he nearly decapitated that first guy, the shield’s gone through a building or something, after all the hard work I put into it—”

“Dude, JARVIS did all the work,” Sam panted. “Woah, _fu_ —!”

Static.

“Wow, that was a really impressive throw,” Tony said. “He landed right in the fountain. I don’t think the earpieces are waterproof. You know, I’m gonna make a note about that right now, I’ll fix it on the next—”

Clint shut him out. He pulled the shield close to his body and ran across the street, as fast as he could, unbelievably grateful that Steve believed in sensible shoes, at least. The post box took most of the bullets, with the HYDRA goons standing planted in the middle of the road like trees, but one glanced off the top of his shield, bending it.

“—nd they seem to know Alpha’s not the real guy, most of them are leaving.” Tony was still talking. Big surprise. “He’s hopping mad. I think they mostly figure Charlie’s the one, probably because he _threw his shield_ and actually _put it through a wall,_ just like I _said_ not—”

Gunshots interrupted him, close to one of the receivers. “Shut the fuck up,” Bucky said through gritted teeth. “I count seven men. Bet there are more waiting to close in once they pick a target.”

“You got a gun past Whiskey?” Tony said, delighted almost beyond words. Except not, because he was Tony Stark. “ _Cool._ Any more?”

“No, just the one,” Bucky said, disappointed.

Yeah, Clint was definitely asking him where he’d hidden that thing, if he survived this. He wanted to know if Bucky could pull off that pistol-somehow-hidden-on-a-very-trim-waist thing, and if he’d tell him how to do it. Natasha refused to reveal her secrets.

But right now, he had no gun of his own and some getting-serious problems. The HYDRA agents had realized that he would keep hiding behind cars, given the chance, and decided to spread out. One dug around in the back of the SUV like he had something big and nasty stashed back there.

Clint ran, holding his shield in front of him like he’d seen Steve do on the news, and got up enough momentum to crash through the front door of the apartment building, whose management had foolishly installed something with a lot of glass panes. He tripped over the frame and almost fell on his face, but he figured that probably nobody would notice. A few more shots pinged around his head and he ran farther into the lobby.

Some panicked resident had left their grocery bag propping open the door to the stairs; Clint kicked it out of the way and slammed the door shut, taking the stairs two at a time. Maybe he’d take a leaf out of Bucky’s book and head to the roof. If only he had his _bow,_ then this wouldn’t exactly be a _problem_ —

“What, no extra clips?” Tony complained. “Some super assassin you are. Some of Alpha’s guys are heading towards you, by the way. He’s holding a couple of them up—I can’t see very clearly, the awning is in the way—but I think—cool! He just threw a chair at them—you _do_ know that’s a crowded intersection, right? Delta, where are you?”

“Climbing some stairs,” Clint said. “I’m in the apartment building. It’ll take them a few minutes to get in.” Growling under his breath, he took off the shield and rubbed at his shoulder. The damn thing was _heavy._

“HYDRA: defeated by staircases,” Tony said. “Typical. You should— _holy shit!_ ”

His earpiece screeched again, crackled, and died. Well. Bucky’s did. Clint could still hear Tony’s breathing.

“What just happened?” he demanded.

“Uh, the Hummer from Alpha Quadrant just ran Juliet over,” Tony said. “He was crossing the road—didn’t use the crosswalk, either, that was probably his main problem. Anyway, the Hummer came flying around the corner and ran him over, and now they’ve pushed him into another car on the other side of the road. Oh—no, he’s fine, he just threw a door at them.”

Bucky was too stubborn to die. Clint sighed and resumed climbing, trying to hook the shield over his back like Steve always did, except he couldn’t quite get the straps to loop properly. It was a lot harder than it looked.

He kicked open the door to the roof as Tony said, “Yeah, that was definitely a mug. And—maybe a tin of tea? That didn’t get far. I think it was more a statement than anything. Whiskey’s pretty mad.”

Clint crept to the rail and peeked over. Luckily, HYDRA goons always wore black and they were easy to spot, even from six floors up. Unluckily, one of them had taken the time to assemble a machine gun, and he immediately pulled the trigger. Clint flung himself down, bricks shattering around his head, and landed hard behind an ornamental metal table, something solid digging into his gut. “ _Oof,_ ” he said.

He was lying on a very long black bag, kind of like what you’d put a fishing pole in, except flat. He turned it over and saw that it said STARK INDUSTRIES on the front, stitched in neat white letters. Somebody’d hidden it behind the bushes with some gardening equipment. Bemused, Clint unzipped the case.

“Son of a bitch,” he blurted out, gaping at the biggest, ugliest rifle he’d ever seen in his life. The kick had to be insane. It was too long to really be practical in close-quarters combat, and the high-tech scope really only made that more obvious. He hefted it and looked through the sights. “ _Son_ of a _bitch,_ ” he repeated, when he realized who had to be responsible.

“Are you dying?” Tony asked curiously.

“No, but Juliet planted this—do you think this is the rifle he used to shoot the boss?” Slugs from this sucker could punch through the walls of Steve’s old apartment. “Who the fuck let him _keep_ this?”

“Man, bet he wishes he had a gun right now,” Tony said. “Though the steering wheel seems to be working all right for him.”

Bucky’s loss, Clint’s gain. He could shoot this thing. He grinned; the game had changed, all right.

He steadied it and lurched upright, popping himself and the gun up above the lip of the building, took a second to aim, and pulled the trigger. The combination of the weight and the kick knocked the breath out of him, but he made his point when the bullet punched a hole straight through the SUV and blew apart a twiddly column on one of the banks. HYDRA goons dove for cover.

“Dude, that gun is _sick,_ ” Tony said, impressed. “Stay on the roof.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Sierra,” Clint said. He flipped down the stand towards the end of the barrel and aimed slightly better this time, destroying the machine gun’s stand. It was still like being kicked by a horse. “What about the others?”

“Whiskey’s guys don’t have any bullets left,” Tony reported. “They’re throwing things at each other right now. He got one of them with a full pot of coffee and then hit him with his shield; so he’s doing all right. And Juliet’s still in… the…”

“What?” Clint demanded, when Tony didn’t go on. “ _What?_ ”

“Barton, did you put your bow and arrows in a car outside the Roxxon building?” Tony said, forgetting completely about code names in his glee.

 _Shit._ “… How the fuck did he find them?”

“HYDRA drove him into your car, that’s how,” Tony said. “And they are _so_ regretting it, too— _that’s right! Yes!_ Now one’s come down with a case of arrow to shoulder. You two are _nuts._ I can’t believe you both— _hahaha, get him!_ ”

Clint scowled. He’d trade weapons with Bucky in a heartbeat. He pulled the trigger again and blew out one of the SUV’s tires. One of the HYDRA agents, evidently a newbie, fell over and pretended to be injured.

“Oh shit,” Tony said. “Wow. Uh. Okay, so that’s just—that’s definitely—I don’t really know how to tell you this, but—”

Clint saw the man in black out of the corner of his eye and dove for cover behind a potted bush, clocking himself in the ear with Bucky’s insane gun on the way down. The HYDRA agent on the next roof over opened fire with a semi-auto and cloaked the area with bullets; he’d obviously been to the HYDRA marksmanship academy, because he missed Clint, who was briefly stunned and dizzy. He dragged himself to his feet and made for the stairs again, slamming the door behind him. And the usual: _thunkthunkthunk._

He inspected the side of his head gingerly. He’d split his ear against the scope and Tony’s stupid earpiece was dead. The blow had popped the battery out of its socket and twisted the wires so he couldn’t get it to fit back in properly. What a piece of shit. Tony had probably made these dumb things at four in the morning after no sleep and a _lot_ of caffeine.

On the plus side, now he didn’t have Tony nattering in his ear, and he could actually focus without a blow-by-blow account of how their plan had gone to shit. He figured out how to open one of the pouches on Steve’s utility belt and shoved the earpiece in there. After a second of thought, he also broke into the janitor’s closet and dumped the fake shield behind a shelf. It would just slow him down. Not that Bucky’s gun was much better, but at least if he ran out of bullets, he could club someone to death with it. He wasn’t so sure about the shield, in that department.

Clint ran down the stairs, nearly silent in Steve’s sensible shoes. He paused about three steps up from the spilled bag of groceries to listen. Yep—that would be the distinct sound of somebody drilling out the lock on the door. The schmuck on the roof had probably ‘fessed up to his terrible aiming skills.

He maneuvered himself into the corner, aimed in the general direction of muttered cursing (the lock, it seemed, was putting up a fight), and deliberately expelled some of the used shells. _Then_ he pulled the trigger. He figured he could defend himself with “not quite dead” if Sam put up a fuss about the definition of _non-lethal._

The guy yelped in surprise and pain and definitely fell over. Clint propped the gun against his shoulder and opened the door easily. Building management had clearly been more sensible about locks than front doors, that was for sure. And the HYDRA agent had the gall to look indignant about the whole thing, even with a big hole in his shoulder. He wouldn’t bleed out.

Probably.

“ _You’re_ not—” the guy said.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Clint snapped, unable to help himself. “I’m Lieutenant Sarcasm. Nice to meet you.” He left him lying there, staining the carpet beyond any hope of repair, and poked his head cautiously out the door.

The others were still on the street, as before, and he shot the one trying to fix the machine gun before any of his friends noticed the guy in the spangly uniform. These particular HYDRA recruits were _not_ the pick of the litter.

One of them took up his semi-auto again and sprayed bullets at the doorway. Improbably, he managed to hit the call box just beside Clint’s elbow. Someone hiding in one of the banks screamed, even though the gunfire wasn’t even towards that side of the street.

“Have you guys _ever_ shot guns before?” Clint yelled. He swung Bucky’s rifle up and got the mirror of the SUV, not really making the case for his own aiming skills. It had to be the gun, he told himself. The kick was really starting to mangle his shoulder. Only Bucky could find something like this practical.

Offended, the shooter took off running towards the apartment building, head and shoulders down like a linebacker, and Clint realized that he would never be able to wrestle the rifle to bear in time.

_Ah._

He elected to run away instead.

He should’ve known better. This guy had shoulders that would have actually sort of fit in Steve’s uniform, and he had a head start, and Clint had to carry a long, heavy load, and so he and the goon and the gun all went down in a tangle. Clint scraped his palm on the concrete and the gun decided, for once, to be helpful, mainly by toppling over Clint’s back at an angle that drove the hard corner of the butt into the guy’s sternum.

He gasped, in that not-actually-a-sound way you do when you have no breath in your lungs. And he dropped his semi-auto onto the pavement. Amateur.

Clint elbowed him in the face and twisted around onto his side, cracking the guy on the cheek with the barrel, and punched him once he was down and out, just to be sure. With a groan of relief, he dumped Bucky’s stupid gun on the sidewalk and picked up the semi-automatic instead.

The remaining three bailed. One of them, radio in hand, waved frantically at his friends from the back door of the SUV, screaming, “ _It’s him, we’re sure! _”__

Oh yeah, Clint thought smugly. Hawkeye wins again, bitches.

The man added, “Do you _want_ the Winter Soldier to find us?”

—Fucking _Bucky._

Well and truly angry now, Clint got up on one knee and blanketed the area with gunfire. Unfortunately, he’d never really been good with blunt instruments like this, and his greatest accomplishment remained the broken side mirror. Okay, so maybe he owed that guy on the roof an apology.

His nemeses didn’t even care that he was shooting in their general direction. As soon as they had all piled in, they peeled out, executing a sloppy six-point turn and then driving straight towards Clint. Well, since he was up on the sidewalk, it wasn’t really at him, but they would definitely pass by and then flee the city and probably the country, and Clint would be the one who failed to hold up his end of the plan. Natasha would never let him live it down.

Then he remembered Bucky’s gun.

He grabbed it again and lunged out. The SUV slowed to avoid a moped that somebody’d ditched in the middle of the road, and he shoved the rifle into the wheel-well, letting go instantly and jumping behind another Mercedes—this one a slightly lighter shade of silver.

Honestly, Clint only expected to inconvenience them a little. Add to their chiropractor bills, maybe. At least he would be able to say that he tried to stop them. But the rifle was big and heavy and built to withstand a souped-up metal arm attached to a psychotic genetically engineered assassin, and the pressure required to break it also tore out the suspension and ruined the axle. The SUV careened sideways, crashed through a BMW and a post box, and ended up in the lobby of one of the banks, broken glass everywhere. Its taillights flashed sporadically and every alarm on the block went off at once.

“Fuck,” Clint said, amazed; and then, “ _Fuck._ ” Bucky was going to kill him. No, _literally_ kill him. He needed to book it to Canada or someplace equally unlikely and hope that Steve could talk him down.

But first, he had to get away from this street. It would suck to be arrested when the cops finally arrived. He would kill himself before he let “impersonating Captain America” get added to his permanent record.

 

* * *

 

Clint broke into Steve’s apartment via the window closest to the building next door. To his surprise, he found himself in a totally unfamiliar room, and had a blank moment of panic where he imagined himself standing in an old lady’s bedroom before he noticed the explosion of WWII history books, fuzzy blankets, and knives. But mostly the knives. It looked like Bucky had literally just thrown that last set onto his bed in a fit of pique and never put them away.

He itched to take a look around—especially at the stack of papers on the bedside table, covered in secretive scribbles—but then he remembered Bucky’s threats about the coffee machine, which wasn’t even in his own personal space. Also, the broken rifle.

He opened the door and headed for the kitchen, fully intending to chew Tony out and then demand funds for a plane ticket. He reacted to the gun in his face without thinking, trying to slap it aside, going for a kick to the attacker’s knee—but she avoided him neatly and slammed him to his back on the carpet.

“ _Oof,_ ” he said, for the second time that day.

“Clint?” Natasha said. She immediately let up on the chokehold. She looked perfect, as usual, even in a ripped jacket and pants with holes in the knees. She smelled really good. “What are you _wearing?_ ”

“Uh,” he said, voice cracking like it hadn’t since he was fifteen, and tried to smile winningly. He had no answer.

Steve appeared around the corner, brow furrowed. He blinked down at them. “Barton? Why are you here too?” His frown got deeper. “Is that my uniform?”

“If I say yes,” Clint hedged, “are you going to be mad?”

“No,” Steve said grimly. “I think it’s pretty clear who’s responsible.”

“It’s my policy to never admit responsibility unless I know the price tag attached!” Tony hollered from somewhere behind Steve. “I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me!”

“It was definitely him,” Clint said.

“Lies! Defamation! Whatever evidence you have is fabricated!”

“Maybe you should let him up,” Steve told Natasha, nodding down at Clint.

She was still sitting on his knees. But she sighed and stood up, tucking her gun away as she did, and held out one hand for Clint to take. “Are we going to want to hear this story?”

“Probably not,” Clint said, taking it. “It’s really stupid.” And he was sure it would sound even worse when he tried to explain.

Tony had been put in an armchair—Clint could tell because while he fidgeted like he wanted to get up and pace, he didn’t dare—and he tapped his fingers on the armrest, glaring. “What, no _hello, Tony?_ ” he demanded. “I was worried you were _dead!_ You wouldn’t answer me!”

“That’s because your earpiece broke,” Clint snapped. He fished around until he came up with its remains, a bit more squished than he remembered. He blamed the sidewalk.

“Your ear!” Natasha said, as if she’d just noticed. It was probably somewhat hidden under brick dust and sidewalk grit. She reached out to touch it. “Are you all right? What happened?”

“I smacked myself in the head,” Clint said. “It’s okay. Really.” She had such small, deadly fingers. He felt like he hadn’t seen her in years, instead of only three and a half months.

“The cameras didn’t have a good view of the roof,” Tony said snidely, like this was why he'd gotten injured in the first place.

“What were you doing on a roof?” Steve turned his Captain America stare on both of them until they squirmed. “On a roof _in my uniform,_ ” he clarified.

“Uh, I was on the roof to avoid getting shot,” Clint said. Because duh.

“Why were you getting shot at?” Natasha demanded. He could see her brain whirling. If Bucky didn’t track down the remaining attackers first, she’d stalk and kill them all. It could be a battle of the Russian(ish) ex-assassins. He’d pay good money to see that.

Before he could think up a plausible lie that absolutely did not involve cosplay and sucking at aiming guns properly, somebody banged on the door. “ _Stark!_ ” Sam yelled. “I am going to kill you! Open up this damn door!”

Steve went to answer it, an increasingly comical look of confusion on his face—especially when he got a look at Sam on the other side, dripping wet and also dressed in one of his uniforms. “Sam?”

“Oh,” Sam said. “Uh, hi, Steve. What’re you doing back, man? I thought you were upstate.”

“Um, not anymore,” Steve said. “Obviously. Do you want a towel? What happened?”

“I fell in a fountain. A towel would be great,” he added, sloshing across the threshold. He really was sopping wet. Steve’s original uniform had clearly not been made from the most waterproof materials.

As Steve went to snag some towels from the bathroom, Natasha said, her voice edging on dangerous, “Did you end up in a fountain for the same reason Barton was up on a roof, trying not to get shot? What am I going to hear if I turn on the radio?”

“Probably something really badass,” Tony said, because of course. He held up his hands at the glares he got in response. “Whatever! I still think the plan totally worked. We drew them out, right? Now that we have Natasha, we can track them down, and bam! Mastermind apprehended!”

“Track who down?” Steve asked. He had two big fluffy towels in his arms; Sam took them gratefully and pressed them to his front, making absolutely no difference whatsoever.

“HYDRA, duh,” Tony said. “Who do you think? We had to help you two! So basically, we thought that—well, it was Sam’s idea first, but I helped, I was definitely the other planner here—”

“The idea was to pretend to be you so we could catch them,” Sam interrupted. He scuffed his toes a little on the carpet, shame-faced. “It didn’t even work that well. The police probably have mine.”

“They do,” Tony said, pointing to the tablet set up on the island in the kitchen. “And they grabbed your guys too, Clint. Well, after they busted out the Jaws Of Life to pry them out of the wreckage, but—”

“They _actually came after you?_ ” Natasha exclaimed.

“HYDRA?” Steve repeated, and then froze. Horror spread across his face. “ _Where’s Bucky?_ ”

“He’s fine,” Sam said quickly. “We’ve been keeping an eye on him. Right now—I’m sure right now JARVIS is tracking him, right?”

“But why would HYDRA come here?” Natasha asked, bewildered. “I mean—Steve and I found their headquarters early this morning and caught their leader, so what’s the point of coming back to New York?”

“You _already caught him?_ ” Tony cried, crestfallen. “What is my life?”

“Nat, you’re telling me that—I dressed up like this—for nothing?” Clint demanded, aghast.

“Seriously, where’s Bucky?” Steve asked.

“Oh my god,” Sam said, realization dawning. “We’re _completely incompetent,_ aren’t we?”

“Maybe just a little,” Natasha said generously. “What _was_ your genius plan, anyway?”

“Dress up, lure them out, and then—actually, I don’t even know what we were supposed to do then,” Clint said. Why hadn’t they tried explaining this to themselves _before_ throwing it into action? Why had they executed an op after a mere twelve hours of planning? Were they all _completely stupid?_

“Apprehend the villains, _duh,_ ” Tony said. He shot Clint this really obnoxious patronizing glance, and Clint wanted to smack him.

“With _what?_ ” he challenged. “You only gave us fake steel shields! And those were _really heavy!_ I couldn’t do _anything_ with mine. I just ended up putting it in a closet somewhere so I wouldn’t have to carry it around! If you’d just let me carry my bow like I wanted—”

Tony looked vaguely guilty about something. Sam said, “It was supposed to be non-lethal!” like protesting would somehow make it so.

“Whatever, you wanted some guns too,” Clint snapped. “Last I heard, you fought them with crap from a coffee shop.”

“They had pretty heavy ceramic mugs,” Sam said, giving up on being dry any time before next week and throwing the towels over his shoulder. “Once you learn the art of food fighting, you never forget. HYDRA doesn’t know the secret. They hate fun.”

“If you’d just let me have my original street, then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now,” Clint fumed.

“Street?” Steve asked, pouncing on the first thing in this conversation to make a lick of sense to an outsider. “Where were you guys? Are there any casualties? Did Bucky go with you?”

“I don’t think anyone _died,_ ” Tony said. “I mean, the only people who got shot were HYDRA and I don’t think we care about them, and you guys did a fair job of not aiming for heads and stuff—er, well, you two did. You know. That mess outside the Roxxon building—well, to be fair, by that point he was too mad to pick up anybody’s gun—”

“I was by Jitters,” Sam told Steve, answering his original question. “Tony was here the whole time, being ‘Mission Control.’”

Tony scowled at him.

“I was in the financial district,” Clint added. “The bank’s smashed up, but beyond some really busted, really expensive cars, I don’t think I broke _too_ much.”

Steve started to seem kind of annoyed. “Then where—” he began.

As if on cue, the door slammed open and Bucky stormed in, looking about ten seconds away from strangling and/or stabbing and/or shooting and/or exploding most of everyone in the whole world, which would have been scary if Clint weren’t sadly used to that expression by now in this pathetic excuse for an op. “I swear to fucking Christ, Wilson, if you don’t give me a gun right this fucking second so I can track those motherfucking mercenaries to their hides and put them down I will—“ and then he saw Steve and both his body and the near-screech came to an abrupt halt. “Oh. Um. Hi?”

Steve just stared at him, mouth slightly ajar.

“Steve and Natasha caught the leader really early this morning,” Sam said, almost mournful. “He’s in jail already.”

“Also, Clint took the gun you hid on the roof,” Tony added, promptly throwing Clint under that particular bus.

“What!” Bucky exclaimed, betrayed. His eyes got really big and it shouldn’t have been possible for a terrifying ghost-story assassin to look like a kicked puppy. “How could you?”

“Whatever, like that isn’t Clint’s bow over your shoulder,” Natasha snapped. Well, he knew who to get a Christmas present this year.

Then he noticed that his beloved bow was definitely not the shape it should’ve been. In fact, it looked _distinctly_ twisted and mangled. “Did you _break it?_ ” Clint yelled. He felt like he’d been shot in the heart.

“No, of course n—” Buck visibly backpedaled at the look on Clint’s face. “Well, technically, yes, but—”

“Dude, what did you do, put it through a meat grinder?” Sam asked, halfway between horrified and impressed.

“It just—I don’t know, it’s not built for my arm,” Bucky said. He pretended to be apologetic. “I’m sorry, but the—string… thing snapped and I didn’t have any good parts of the car left, and if I waited to grab anything else, they would’ve gotten away, so…”

“So, what, you _hit people with it?_ ” Clint said. A precision instrument, ruined by an idiot with an overpowered metal arm!

“I _did_ stop eventually,” Bucky snapped, annoyed and defensive. “It wasn’t as hardy as I thought, so—and what kind of a weapon is a bow, anyway? The rest of us have moved on to more _effective_ kinds of—”

“God, you are just—you know, you totally deserve your rifle fucking up the suspension on a truck,” Clint said recklessly, feeling a lot less guilty about that whole thing now that he knew Bucky was a _total bitch._

Tony gasped theatrically and covered his mouth.

“You _didn’t,_ ” Bucky said, like that would somehow reverse time and fix his gun, voice gone all high and shrill again.

“Where the hell were you two hiding all this?” Sam demanded, aghast. Clint had forgotten that his earpiece had been the first to go. “We agreed no lethal weapons! I thought I confiscated all that crap you tried to smuggle in this morning!”

“Bag on a roof,” Clint said immediately, pointing at Bucky.

“Bag in a _conveniently parked car,_ ” Bucky snitched, pointing back.

“Whatever, you didn’t even think of that,” Natasha snapped. Forget a Christmas present; he was buying this girl a new gun.

Bucky sulked. “I like roofs,” he muttered.

“I can _not_ believe you two right now,” Sam said. “This is almost not worth wearing the uniform. Jesus, we’re the _Avengers,_ we’re _supposed_ to be keeping casualties down, not increasing them by a power of ten!”

“An arrow to the head would’ve solved that problem so much better,” Clint told him.

“I still think we should’ve gone with the gasoline option, I liked that one,” Bucky said sullenly. “They were trying to kill Steve.”

Steve, who said in a strange voice, “That’s the same kind of blue as your old coat. I never noticed.”

“What?” said Tony, typically assuming himself to be the topic of conversation, and probably very confused because he was wearing a red shirt.

Bucky looked down at his stolen uniform. “I… guess so?” he said, like he’d never really thought about it before, but after some comparison with a mental paint chip or something he’d concluded that Steve’s assertion was basically sound.

“Did I ever tell you that it really suits you?” Steve said, still in that weird voice, while the rest of them stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

Except for Bucky, who turned a very sudden and very alarming shade of red and said, “Are we talking about that farmhouse in Poland? Because I—sort of—I thought I’d made it up?”

Steve suddenly looked a lot uncertain and a bit less like he was ogling his basically undead best friend in his own old uniform. “I guess we should’ve—talked about it,” he said quickly. “After you—came back. I’m sorry, I just—“

Bucky’s whole face lit up. He looked absolutely nothing at all like the Winter Soldier and everything like those kids in videos online being told they get to go to Disneyland. “Are you saying,” he blurted out breathlessly, “are you telling me that was real?”

It had been like watching a ping-pong game, and now everyone’s gazes settled on Steve. Clint _really_ wished he had his cell phone handy.

“Meant it then, mean it now, Buck,” Steve said, voice rough, and without any hesitation.

Then they both sort of jumped each other at the same time. Bucky flung both arms around Steve’s neck like a teenage girl, and again, his adorableness was far outsized compared to logic, but really it was just every fangirl’s dream, watching Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes make out like the world was ending. Forget Tony; Clint could have funded his own arrows with the royalties off this video.

“So, wait,” Tony said. “Does this mean the history books were wrong when they said you two were Just Friends?”

 

* * *

 

> **UPDATE ON THE NYC SITUATION**

> Now that it’s apparently all wrapped up.  
>           For those of you just tuning in, there were three Captain America imposters running around New York this morning. How do we know they’re all fakes? Well, reports just came in confirming that Steve Rogers himself was upstate, taking down a rogue HYDRA cell—with the Black Widow, of course.  
>           Right now, all we have is shaky cell phone footage and stuff from CCTV cams, so it’s still a bit unclear what’s actually going on. (The video at that link does a pretty good job of stitching it all together based on time stamps, so I highly recommend clicking.) We can tell that the fakes were fighting HYDRA footsoldiers, so aside from stealing some star-spangled uniforms, they seem to be the good guys.  
>           Right, to be technical, there were two men in red-white-and-blue and one in the blue-and-white version we saw in Captain America’s SHIELD photo during the Washington fiasco last spring. All three of them had shields, but it looks like at least one of them cracked clean in half, so I, personally, don’t think any of them were the real deal.  
>           CCTV footage has all of them on the streets by about 10:15, and the attacks started shortly afterwards. One of the imposters in what I’ll call the traditional uniforms really seemed to focus on getting civilians out of the way. (That’s the only testimonial we have about this thing so far, BTW.) There’s a fairly clear cell shot of him facing down some HYDRA goons by the fountain, and he looks African-American and probably ex-military. HYDRA seemed to lose interest in him pretty quickly, but in the security video you can see him beating up the three guys left behind with plates and cups and stuff from the Jitters Café. It’s actually totally badass.  
>           The other guy in the traditional uniform really seems to only have a functional knowledge of hand-to-hand combat. He’s definitely white, but beyond that you can’t see much of his face, even in the security camera footage from when he broke into that apartment building. Everyone who watched this thing live will definitely remember when he somehow walked out of the apartments with a seriously massive rifle, though, which you can see here and here. I’m not really an expert on guns, but it’s really long and has quite the scope, so maybe a sniper rifle? Not sure why he’d bring a sniper rifle to a street fight, though. But anyway, there are some really cool shots from a few different angles of him jamming it in the wheel-well of that SUV and the subsequent crash into the front window of a bank. (I think you can just barely see the butt of the gun, poking out by the front left tire.)  
>           The guy in the blue stealth uniform is definitely the most interesting. For one thing, you can watch him take out at least six baddies completely unaided, and there’s a few cell videos that distinctly show these maniacs running away as fast as they can. And then, of course, just before that, someone ran him over with a Hummer and he got thrown through another car, and then somehow came up with _a bow and arrows_. I am not joking, that is seriously something that happened. He shot a couple of them with it, too, but my friend thinks that the string broke or something, because the next thing you know he was doing his best to  beat people to death with it before resorting to his fists. As far as I can tell, the shield he threw at the first mook is the one they keep showing on the news, broken in half. I think it’s pretty clear that he’s hopped up on some knock-off super-soldier serum, because nobody normal can get up A-okay from a hit like that _or_ break a steel shield.  
>           At this point, we’re left with wild mass guessing, at least until we get some more information or better shots of these guys. Any thoughts about their identities?
> 
> _ETA:_ We’ve set up  a poll in another thread with more discussion about who’s who. Most people seem to agree that the fakes might be Avengers.
> 
> _ETA 2:_ Here’s a wonderful post by hulk_smash about the bow and arrows. Seems like Hawkeye may have been involved in some capacity.
> 
> _ETA 3:_ Okay, so we’re pretty sure that the imposters are:  Sam Wilson AKA The Falcon as the guy in the café; Clint Barton AKA Hawkeye as the guy tripping up an SUV with a rifle; and James “Bucky” Barnes as the man in blue. I’m trying to stay in the clinical reporter mindset for this, but I’m nearly 100% sure that’s right.

 

 

* * *

 

> **OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN: CAPTAIN AMERICA IMPOSTERS CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES**

> _New York City._ The NYPD Commissioner confirmed today that she would not be bringing the October 27 Captain America imposters to court. The decision was expected, after Cpt. Steven Rogers spoke to the press on November 1 on their behalf.  
>           “HYDRA’s not pleased about Washington,” Rogers said. “My friends played a vital role in diverting their forces, just when we needed them distracted.”  
>           “The NYPD doesn’t see these imposters as threats,” the Commissioner said. “If Captain Rogers is willing to vouch for them, that’s good enough for us.” She went on to say that the NYPD is still grateful to the Avengers for helping keep crime in the city at an overall low, the incident last month notwithstanding.  
>           Sources in the NYPD tell us that the Commissioner made her decision after personal visits from Cpt. Rogers and multi-billionaire Tony Stark, shortly after the events of October 27.  
>           Though not officially confirmed, sources say that two Avengers members—the Falcon and Hawkeye—were among the imposters. Several articles have concluded that the third man was most likely Sergeant James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, Rogers’s best friend, long presumed killed in action in late 1944.  
>           Rogers revealed Barnes’s survival on Capitol Hill this past summer, after the attacks on Washington, DC, in the spring. Barnes had been held as a POW by HYDRA for over seventy years. Though reportedly recovering, the Avengers have not yet extended an invitation.  
>           The Commissioner confirmed that the HYDRA mercenaries are being held pending trial. Evidence will likely be presented in the spring.

 

* * *

 

> @iamironman: yeah i helped with that stuff in nyc #FakeCaps
> 
> @iamironman: just fyi those idiots couldn’t do anything without me #FakeCaps
> 
> @iamironman: yeah who’s a badass mission control now huh #FakeCaps
> 
> @iamironman: jesus doesn’t like a doubter bit.ly/24o76bw9 #FakeCaps RT “@pixelatedgreenman pix or it didn’t happen”
> 
> @iamironman: u were the worst agent ever so whatev RT “@purplebird btw you were the worst mission control ever #FakeCaps”
> 
> @iamironman: maybe RT “@strangeiscool is that permanent marker? #FakeCaps”
> 
> @iamironman: for history books duh!! RT “@purplebird why did you take a picture of the whiteboard?? #FakeCaps”
> 
> @iamironman: it was a joint plan ok RT “@da_falcon man u need to stop taking credit for my ideas #NotAGenius”
> 
> @iamironman: lies i brought starbucks!!! RT “@da_falcon I know u messed with the coffee machine #NotAGenius”
> 
> @iamironman: idk gremlins or something jfc RT “@purplebird then why did I see three mugs out? #NotAGenius”
> 
> @iamironman: i deny everything RT “@jbb107 Final tally: no macchiatos left, mugs moved #NotAGenius”
> 
> @iamironman: @da_falcon @purplebird ok who told him it was 1 of u 2 #traitor
> 
> @iamironman: ok then it was @itsybitsyspider sry RT “@purplebird not our fault you’re obvious #NotAGenius”
> 
> @iamironman: @itsybitsyspider stop trying to get me killed i said sorry like years ago #innocent
> 
> @iamironman: look i apologzed in prsn what more do u want?? RT “@jbb107 You’re lucky that kill order got rescinded #NotAGenius”
> 
> @iamironman: @jbb107 did u-kno-who ‘rescind’ that order with sex inquiring minds want 2 kno
> 
> @iamironman: @jbb107 i’m taking ur silence as a yes
> 
> @iamironman: @jbb107 will trade pepperoni pizza for binary y/n answer tho
> 
> @iamironman: like ur not thinking it 2 RT “@da_falcon dude u must have a death wish #NotAGenius”
> 
> @iamironman: whose side are u on anyway RT “@warmachine68 if that’s your idea of a genius plan… #NotAGenius”
> 
> @iamironman: omg why is this trending i feel so persecuted #TotallyAGenius

  

* * *

 

> **CAPTAIN AMERICA: OUT AND PROUD!**

> Fans the world over, get your cameras ready—Steve Rogers has a boyfriend, and he’s not afraid who knows it! An amateur photographer caught this adorable shot of the good Captain and his best friend, James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, outside a local coffee shop in New York City. It’s hard to tell what’s sweeter: the cinnamon bun or that kiss!  
>           It looks like it only took seventy years for the boys to get their act together. Congratulations to the happy couple—they’ve earned their fairytale ending!

 

* * *

 

Operation Star-Spangled Double(s) went down in Avengers history as both a total failure and a complete success. They had failed to actually apprehend the mastermind, and the supposedly non-lethal plan ended with twenty mercenaries in the hospital: five with gunshot wounds, two with arrow wounds, three with injuries consistent with a car crash, one with a fat lip from a blow with a steel shield, two with cuts from smashed ceramics, five with general scrapes and bruises from fistfights, and six with concussions and massive discomfort from being beaten half to death with a bow and then a metal arm. The few who managed to escape injury were later arrested by the police. It had been badly conceived, badly managed, and badly executed, and the public largely regarded with bemusement the day when they had three Captain Americas running around.

On the plus side, Sam got to be Captain America for a day. On the even-more-plus side, Steve was happy, for once, and exactly as competent as he had been before acquiring (re-acquiring?) a boyfriend. And on the most-plus-of-all side, having sex on a regular basis made Bucky loose and lazy (comparatively) and the Tower saw a definite decrease in meltdowns as necking in broom closets went up.

“That was the plan all along,” Clint told Natasha on their fifth coffee outing of the month. They were taking a break from the second arrow design. “I totally meant for them to get together. The unresolved sexual tension was killing me.”

She patted him gently on the head and gave him a kiss for his trouble, and really, the success rate on that crap plan was through the roof.

**Author's Note:**

> Pro tip: if you want to be inspired, somehow contrive to get yourself stuck with only one movie for three weeks, then watch it at least twelve times. Results guaranteed.


End file.
